RECAPITULATION - group 10 (chapter 14 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy)

This page presents
the two recapitulation statements (questions and answers) that pertain to the
selected group from the chapter RECAPITULATION of the Christian Science
textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. To
the statements the applicable part of the glossary definition for the term ADAM
is added, and the applicable Bible Lesson topic.

Question 19.

-
Is materiality the concomitant of spirituality, and is material sense a
necessary preliminary to the understanding and expression of Spirit?

Answer.
-(Error
only ephemeral)
If error is necessary to define or to
reveal Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise. Materialsense is an absurd
phrase, for matter has no sensation. Science declares that Mind, not
matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts this statement is
the false sense, which ever betrays mortals into sickness, sin, and death.
If the unimportant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because of
their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephemeral views of error
ought to be obliterated by Truth. Why malign Christian Science for
instructing mortals how to make sin, disease, and death appear more and
more unreal?

Scientific translations
485

Emerge gently from matter into Spirit.
Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come
naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result
of spiritual growth. Not death, but the understanding of Life, makes man
immortal. The belief that life can be in matter or soul in body, and that
man springs from dust or from an egg, is the result of the mortal error
which Christ, or Truth, destroys by fulfilling the spiritual law of being,
in which man is perfect, even as the "Father which is in heaven is
perfect." If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot
outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and
delineates foreign agents, called disease and sin.

Material
beliefs
485

The heathen gods of mythology controlled
war and agriculture as much as nerves control sensation or muscles measure
strength. To say that strength is in matter, is like saying that the power
is in the lever. The notion of any life or intelligence in matter is
without foundation in fact, and you can have no faith in falsehood when
you have learned falsehood's true nature.

Sense
^versus^ Soul
486

Suppose one accident happens to the eye,
another to the ear, and so on, until every corporeal sense is quenched.
What is man's remedy? To die, that he may regain these senses? Even then
he must gain spiritual understanding and spiritual sense in order to
possess immortal consciousness. Earth's preparatory school must be
improved to the utmost. In reality man never dies. The belief that he dies
will not establish his scientific harmony. Death is not the result of
Truth but of error, and one error will not correct another.

Death
an error
486

Jesus proved by the prints of the nails,
that his body was the same immediately after death as before. If death
restores sight, sound, and strength to man, then death is not an enemy but
a better friend than Life. Alas for the blindness of belief, which makes
harmony conditional upon death and matter, and yet supposes Mind unable to
produce harmony! So long as this error of belief remains, mortals will
continue mortal in belief and subject to chance and change.

Permanent
sensibility
486

Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of
man, are eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immortality are
in Spirit and understanding, not in matter, - hence their permanence. If
this were not so, man would be speedily annihilated. If the five corporeal
senses were the medium through which to understand God, then palsy,
blindness, and deafness would place man in a terrible situation, where he
would be like those "having no hope, and without God in the
world;" but as a matter of fact, these calamities often drive mortals
to seek and to find a higher sense of happiness and existence.

Exercise of Mind faculties
487

Life is deathless. Life is the origin and
ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walking in
the pathway of Truth both before and after that which is called death.
There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than
materially. There is more Science in the perpetual exercise of the
Mind-faculties than in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind
remains. The apprehension of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to
the deaf centuries ago, and it will repeat the wonder.

Adam:
An inverted image of Spirit.Lesson
topic: ADAM AND FALLEN MAN

Question 20.

-
You speak of belief.

Who
or what is it that believes?

Answer.
-(Understanding
versus belief)
Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the
need of believing. Matter cannot believe, and Mind understands. The body
cannot believe. The believer and belief are one and are mortal. Christian
evidence is founded on Science or demonstrable Truth, flowing from
immortal Mind, and there is in reality no such thing as mortal
mind. Mere belief is blindness without Principle from which to explain the
reason of its hope. The belief that life is sentient and intelligent
matter is erroneous.

The Apostle James said, "Show me thy
faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."
The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens our days by
strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness
and immortality.

Confirmation
by healing
487

This faith relies upon an understood
Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the
enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result of our teachings is
their sufficient confirmation. When, on the strength of these
instructions, you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that
you understand this teaching, and therefore you receive the blessing of
Truth.

Belief
and firm trust
488

The Hebrew and Greek words often translated
belief differ
somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the English verb believe;
they have more the significance of faith, understanding, trust, constancy,
firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in our common version to
approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of
understanding.

Adam: The image and likeness of what God has not created, namely, matter,
sin, sickness, and death.
Lesson topic: MORTALS AND IMMORTALSAdam:
The opposer of Truth, termed error.Lesson
topic: SOUL AND BODY